Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

The carriage road that had once run along the hillside above Silverside Hall, then fallen past Gutherscale Hall before more sedately following the lakeshore towards Grange and the jaws of Borrowdale, had become impassable within ten years of Lord Greta’s exile in 1716. Where a road was not in regular use, the weather and winds would soon shake it from carriageway to bridleway to path within a few years. The footpath which Harriet took led more directly from the lawns of Silverside and followed the line of the lake through a cool woodland of birch and beech. Derwent Water appeared through the trees to her left, silken and dark grey, and on her right the ground rose, the moss and leaf-mould-covered ground studded with holly.

The morning had brought no freshening of the air with it but Harriet was soothed by the water and wood around her. Mrs Briggs had told her that although Crowther’s father had sold the timber on his land, she and her husband had been less inclined to clear, and since they had bought the land the hillsides had redressed themselves in rowan and ash.

She was glad to be alone. It was a luxury to take in the morning without the pressing awareness of orders to be given, letters written or visitors to be endured. The scents of the woodland reminded her of the copse on the edge of her lawns at Caveley, though it was subtly different here. Other bird cries, a variety in the grasses; the change in the soil and shape of the land from Sussex was expressed in such ways and it gave her pleasure to note them. Such pleasure, in fact, that when she came upon the ruins of Gutherscale Hall it was with surprise. She had been examining the flowering mosses at her feet and wondering if Mrs Briggs might know their names, when she looked up and found herself standing before the ghost of the great building. They must have been a very influential family in their time, to judge by the height of the remaining walls, but now nature was busily undoing their works. It was remarkable how it was so reduced in only, Harriet bit her lip, sixty years. There had to have been a fire. She had seen a great house burn in the summer of 1780 and knew how quick and thorough flames could be. That house, Thornleigh Hall, had since been rebuilt and reborn; here, weather and plant growth had completed what fire had begun, if it had been fire. She began to look for signs of it and saw some dark scarring on the stones. She would ask Crowther.

It seemed the oldest parts of the building had survived longest. The square pele tower, though broken in places and breeding saplings in its mortar, looked almost intact. To one side of it, a flight of stone stairs made a shallow ascent to where the more modern parts of the mansion house stood. She climbed the flight cautiously. Surely the trees surrounding her were more than thirty years old. Perhaps Sir William had left a ring of old wood around this place, the better to hide from the lake the signs of its former master. She stepped in through the open mouth of the main entrance and looked about her.

The floors and ceilings were long gone. At intervals halfway up the height of the walls were the hollows of fireplaces. She rebuilt the place in her mind, saw Lady Greta in the fashions of seventy years before sitting by the upper fire with her sewing on her lap and a greyhound at her feet, then smiled at her imaginings.

There was a sudden beating of wings, and the rough shouts from a murder of crows echoed about the ruined walls. She turned and saw them lifting from the ground where once Lord Greta and his men had drunk and eaten before the main fireplace, and fly into the surrounding trees. Through a break in the wall at the opposite side of the Hall she saw Felix appear, his bow slung over his shoulder and his arrows at his side.

He lifted his hat and bowed to her. ‘Good morning, Mrs Westerman. You are like myself. I can never lie in bed and wait for my hot chocolate unless I have been at cards till dawn.’

She was sorry to lose the peace of the place and the pleasures of her fancy, but smiled warmly enough as he walked towards her.

‘The crows do not like you, Felix. They did not trouble themselves to fly away as I entered.’

He shrugged. ‘I am afraid they know me. I brought down a couple in our first week here and since then they have had an eye out for me.’

‘Remarkable.’

‘The crows’ ability to recognise me, or my ability to bring one down with a bow and arrow?’

Harriet laughed. ‘Both, I suppose. You must be quite the expert. Were the birds in flight, or was it a surprise attack?’

He looked a little angry. ‘I would not be so unsporting as to take them on the ground. Though, as you see, they give me no credit for it!’ He looked at where the birds now hunched in the branches above them and Harriet waited for him to speak again. ‘You see I failed to take your advice last night, and now my uncle does not like me,’ he said at last.

‘Does that matter to you?’

He frowned. ‘More than I had thought it might. My own father prefers the brats of his mistress. Perhaps I thought my uncle would like me better. It is a dangerous thing, to feel oneself unloved, Mrs Westerman. One begins to seek affection in unsuitable places.’

Harriet lifted her eyebrows. ‘Stop being so tragic, Felix. You are too young to carry it off effectively.’

He gave a tight smile, then said with forced brightness, ‘Have you investigated the pele tower as yet? That was built to last by someone who knew their business. The stairs are a little uneven in places, but it is still possible to climb, if you would like to see it. The platform is intact, though the floors below are gone.’

Harriet nodded. ‘I should like to. Let us go together. Do you know anything of the history of the building?’

He ushered her through the low stone arch at the base of the tower; it was immediately cooler in the column of old stone. ‘Your son’s tutor would be a better historian,’ he said, his voice following behind her as she climbed the shallow spiral stairs. ‘He had his nose in the guidebook all evening. But I believe this place was built in the fourteenth century as defence from the Scots’ raiding parties, then when the Greta family grew in importance the building was extended. That would have been in the life of the First Earl, the one whose tomb bred an extra corpse.’

Harriet’s fingers traced the old stones as she climbed; there was no sign of fire damage here and the steps were smooth, if rather uneven. From time to time an arch appeared. She leaned forward and saw it gave out onto nothing but air shrouded and clouded like a well. The interior walls were spotted in places with ferns of violent green searching for the splashes of sunlight that crawled around the walls as the world turned. She stepped back a little quickly and felt Felix’s hand under her elbow.

‘Careful, Mrs Westerman.’

She nodded and carried on climbing, then, when her heart had steadied a little said, ‘You did not seem pleased to hear that friends of yours have arrived in the area, Felix.’

‘I hope I was not rude to Mrs Briggs,’ he said after a long pause. Their voices were low; something in the age of the stone made it natural to speak quietly.

‘No, I think only that she was a little disappointed. She wished to please you.’

Felix sighed. ‘I spotted them in town, and they are not acquaintances likely to win me any credit. A cardsharp and his daughter. I lost money to him in Vienna last year.’

‘How strange they should appear here.’

‘Yes.’

‘Still, I suppose that the beauty of the region is known across Europe.’

‘As you say.’

It was clear that Felix wished to say no more, so Harriet fell silent in her turn and saved her breath for the climb. Where the staircase broke into daylight at the top, the world seemed white with light. As she reached it, she hesitated, wondering how far to trust the stone flags at her feet. She looked back at Felix behind her in the gloom. He smiled up at her encouragingly from the shadows.